Just Enough
by Leigh A. Sumpter
Summary: “So, you tell me I don't know pain. You tell me I don’t know what it feels to lose someone important to me, to feel unwanted and alone? You’re absolutely wrong. I feel pain every day of my life.” Draco and Ginny find solace in each other.


**Author Note:** I started this one-shot in July of 2006, a time when I was facing writer's block with many of my other stories. I liked the idea but had very little time, so I dropped it for a while. Now, I've decided to finish and post it. Although I love the D/G ship, I've never used it in a story before now… so please go easy on me! It was hard to write, not very developed, and obviously not my best. Having said that, I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.

* * *

**Just Enough**

Brushing the last lock of red hair into a tight bun, Ginny Weasley tossed her best smile at the full-length mirror situated before her, and sighed. She may as well have grown up around the theatre; her smile was confident enough to convince anyone that she was perfectly happy...

"All right there, Gin?" a familiar voice inquired gently. It was Hermione. She pulled Ginny into a hug. "A broken heart is not easy to mend."

Well, her smile could fool _most_ people, but a best friend always knew when pain took refuge behind it.

Ginny stood up straight, wiped the small smudge of lip gloss off the corner of her mouth, and turned to face her friend. "I know," she responded, with little emotion in her voice.

"Well?" Hermione crossed her arms. "Do you want to talk about it?"

With a brisk shake of the head, Ginny headed for the door. "I'm going to be late." She smoothed out her skirt and, with that, disappeared.

* * *

Breaking up was hard to do. Ginny had learned this countless times in the past, but she had never felt the sting of rejection so much as when it came from Harry Potter. Harry may not have been her first boyfriend, but he was her first love – her only love – and the only boy who had ever ended a relationship that she did not want to end herself.

_It isn't safe,_ he had told her, his fingers brushing her cheek ever-so-softly. _There are people who want me dead. I can't let anything happen to you._

He had pulled this card twice now. The first time, she had understood – it was at the end of her fifth year and the war was getting worse. But now? In Ginny's seventh year, the two had gotten back together, and had stayed that way throughout the rest of the war. Everything should have been fine now. Acknowledged Death Eaters were long gone. The good side had won. And yet, Harry broke up with her after the war's end for the same reason as he had at the war's beginning.

This time, his explanation had not been enough for Ginny. She screamed at him – things she would normally never dare to say – and cried and took the break-up entirely differently than she had the first time around.

If there was any chance of his coming back to her, it was very slim.

* * *

Ginny worked on the first floor of St. Mungo's Hospital, specializing in Creature-Induced Injuries. She was rather young to work there as a Healer – only nineteen – but because of her assistance during the war (as well as in the Hogwarts infirmary), St. Mungo's had secured good training and a quickly accessible job for her.

"How are you feeling now, Charles?" she asked kindly, standing at the bedside of a little boy who had received small burns from a nest of Ashwinders.

"I'm feeling _peachy keen_," he responded angrily. "How do you _think_ I feel, you –"

To interrupt Charles before he said anything that would not make his mother proud, Ginny took a spoon of medicine and stuck it in his mouth. He swallowed the draught with a grimace, and glared at the girl who stood before him.

Ginny heard a small snicker from behind her, and turned around. In the entrance to the ward stood a tall, blonde young man with aristocratic features and an air to support them. _Draco Malfoy_. Ginny groaned.

"What are _you_ doing here?" she demanded, heading toward him. "Unless you've been bitten, stung, or burnt by some magical creature and are in dire need of healing, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"I'm here for visiting hours," Draco replied evenly, giving a slight smirk.

"Who in Merlin's name could you be visiting?" Ginny put a hand on her hip. "You've no family, no friends… what are you planning on doing?"

Draco rolled his eyes. "Don't worry, Ginevra… I didn't come to see _you_," he told her, as if that was the obvious answer, "although if you're in that desperate a situation, I ought to return for gloating purposes later."

"You're hopeless," Ginny muttered. "Are you here to visit someone or not?"

"My cousin, Charles," he conceded finally. "That is, if he isn't still swearing like a pirate."

She shook her head in annoyance, and led Draco to Charles's bed. "Charles, you have a visitor."

Draco began to speak to his cousin, presenting him with a copy of _Charm Your Own Cheese_ as a hospital gift. Meanwhile, Ginny turned on her heel and walked over to the counter to create a remedy for another St. Mungo's patient in the ward.

However, she could not help but look back and watch as Draco did something kind for someone else.

* * *

Draco Malfoy was not all bad.

During the war, he redeemed himself by becoming a spy for the Order of the Phoenix. His father, for whom he no longer cared, had been killed early into Draco's seventh year, and his mother, for whom he _did_ care, had taken her own life because of the war. He did not know what caused his change in heart exactly – it wasn't as though he wanted to save the less-than-purebloods.

And just because he was an ally, many people reasoned, did not mean that Draco was a friend. Because of this, the young Malfoy was, though he often denied it, quite lonely. The youth of the Order tended to avoid him, and his friends from the dark side had quickly abandoned him after his change in loyalty.

He once had plans for after the war. He would marry Pansy Parkinson, secure a job at the Ministry (if there was still, of course, a Ministry left), and the two of them would live in their own mansion. Pansy would bear him a pair of pureblood children with perfect genetics, and Draco would keep the family prosperous.

It wasn't that he loved Pansy, or even remotely liked her, but until Draco's loyalty in the war changed, their marriage was inevitable. Of course, Pansy would never even consider marrying him now that he was part of the enemy, so that plan was demolished. Although he wasn't too disappointed about this loss, he did feel a pang of bitterness whenever he thought about it. Being certain they would marry each other meant that they need not worry about finding someone else… and now that Pansy was _not_ in his future, he wasn't sure who was.

In all honesty, he wasn't sure if _anyone_ was.

* * *

"Your time's up, dear."

Ginny looked up from the concoctions she was assembling to see an older woman beside her. It was Angela, the motherly Healer who had first taken her under her wing at St. Mungo's, ready to release Ginny from her shift. She glanced at the time.

"Have I really been here for that long?" Ginny asked, mostly to herself. "It feels as though I just signed in."

Angela shook her head and laughed good-naturedly. "Sometimes it seems as if all the hours have melted away into one," she told Ginny. "But one glance at the clock will tell you otherwise. You've actually stayed here a half-hour later than usual."

"How curious." Ginny forced a smile, pretending this amused her as much as it had Angela.

"Yes, it certainly is." Angela returned the smile. "Now go. It's getting late… and you're still quite young. A pretty girl like you should have a nice bloke waiting for you now, hmm?"

As much as she liked Angela, Ginny had never divulged much of her personal life to the woman, so she merely nodded at the incorrect statement and continued to feign that same smile she'd seemed to be feigning since she and Harry had broken up.

"Have a good night, Angela," Ginny told her, heading toward the door.

* * *

Leaning against the St. Mungo's building, Draco was slightly startled to see the door swing open beside him, and slightly more startled (though he did not show it) to see that it was the youngest Weasley about to pass him by.

Sensing a presence next to her, Ginny spun around, and when she noticed it was Draco Malfoy, she rolled her eyes. "What are you still doing here?" she demanded. "Don't you have something better to do?"

Draco shrugged. "I'm allowed to stand where I choose, aren't I?" he asked coolly.

Ginny shook her head and pointed to a sign directly in front of them. "It says 'No Loitering,' in case you're incapable of reading."

Nonchalantly flicking his wand, Draco changed the words of the sign to read 'Loiter as you please.' "As you were saying?"

"You really are insufferable," Ginny told him, crossing her arms.

"Well, the trend seems to be catching on, isn't it?" Draco raised an eyebrow. He stood up straight and crossed his arms as well. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd best be on my way." He began to walk away.

Ginny groaned, and began to walk in the same direction.

"Ginevra, must you follow me home?" Draco asked with a smirk.

"Must you insist on calling me 'Ginevra'?" Ginny said in a voice that mocked Draco's condescending tone. "And don't flatter yourself…. I happen to live down this way, too."

Draco sighed. "A shame, indeed. You don't plan on Apparating, do you?"

"No," Ginny responded, "I don't. I like to walk."

"As do I." Draco took a moment to really look at the girl next to him. Aside from her red hair (he had disliked red hair ever since he first met the Weasleys) and her standard Healer uniform, Ginny was actually quite passable, and even more so in the moonlight, although he'd hate to admit it. "So, then, why isn't your Boy Who Lived walking you home now? Surely he would hate to see you all alone this late."

"He's _not_ my boy!" Ginny snapped. "And I can fend for myself, thank you very much."

Draco smirked to himself. "Touchy, aren't we?"

"Besides," Ginny continued, trying to calm herself, "I'm not alone. I've got a nuisance walking with me most of the way home."

"It was merely a question," Draco said. "No need to defame my character." He shook his head. "So, I take this to mean that you and Potter are no longer together?"

Ginny bit her lip, upset that Draco had even tapped into this subject and wondering why she was even humoring him with an answer in the first place. "You are correct," she said, trying to stifle any emotion from coming out in her voice.

"And why, may I ask, are things over between the Wonder Couple?"

Ginny took a deep breath, and shook her head. "I don't want to talk about it."

"He broke up with you," Draco decided. "I can hear it in your voice."

"It doesn't matter," Ginny said, having a difficult time maintaining her cool.

"Of course it does," Draco countered. "It's killing you inside."

"Leave it alone…" Ginny warned, her voice beginning to break.

"Why, Ginevra? Why did he break up with you?"

"I DON'T KNOW WHY!" Ginny exclaimed, bursting into tears. "I don't know! All I know is that he doesn't want me anymore!"

Draco felt true remorse for the way he had egged her on, and sighed. "I'm sorry I asked," he apologized sincerely, reaching for her hand.

His hand was cold and familiar against her skin, in a way that sent a chill up her spine. "Don't touch me!" Ginny cried, removing her hand from his at once. She looked at the ground and took a moment to regain composure. When she finally did, she spoke again, her voice softer. "Why did you need to know?"

Draco crossed his arms. "I wanted to know that there was someone else in the world who felt as much pain as I do," he admitted quietly, extracting a handkerchief for her.

"What a horrible way to look at things," Ginny told him, shaking her head. "Besides, I don't think someone like you, who has been spoon-fed everything you could ever possibly want, has the right to talk about pain. What happened, your parents didn't get you the expensive wizard chess set you wanted as a child?"

"Have you forgotten," Draco said, his voice very calm, "that both of my parents are dead? That my father died in the war… and that my mother killed herself because of it? My mother… the one person I truly cared about… took her own life because she needed my father… because I wasn't enough for her. So, you tell me I don't know pain. You tell me I don't know what it feels to lose someone important to me, to feel unwanted and alone? You're absolutely wrong. I feel pain every day of my life."

Ginny was silent, looking at the ground and shuffling her feet as she walked. When the silence finally became too palpable, she looked up.

"I'm sorry," she told him genuinely. "I didn't realize…"

"Well, now you know."

* * *

"My house is down this way," Ginny said, stopping in her tracks. She looked up at Draco, with whom she would part from here. "So…"

She and Draco had talked about a lot on their walk home, seeing as there was much to talk about. Although she couldn't quite consider him a good friend, she felt as though something had certainly changed between them that night.

"You'd best go see your family, then," Draco conceded. "They're probably wondering what took you so long."

"Yes." A lock of hair came loose from the tight bun she had worn to St. Mungo's, so she quickly tucked it behind her ear. "They probably are." She paused for a moment. "It's a funny thing…"

"What?"

"The fact that we've never really talked about anything of substance until now," Ginny said. "And the fact that I told you more than I've told my best friend… while in a way, you and I are like complete strangers."

"Sometimes," Draco replied thoughtfully, "that's just enough."

"I suppose you're right." Ginny felt her hands slip back into his, but this time she did not pull away.

"Before you go…" Draco bent down and kissed her quickly on the lips.

Ginny furrowed her brow. "What was that for?"

"Curiosity," explained Draco, smirking. "I was wondering how you might react."

"You really are insufferable," Ginny said with a laugh, repeating her words from earlier, but as she looked up at the young Malfoy, into his cold blue eyes filled with so many mixed emotions, she wondered if _she_ didn't harbor that same curiosity. They really weren't so different, the two of them, harboring so much pain and heartache. Neither of them wanted to be alone.

So, to show him she wasn't afraid, Ginny pulled Draco close to her and kissed him much harder, which he quickly reciprocated.

"What was that for?" he asked.

"Temporary insanity," Ginny replied with a smile. "It's the only explanation I can think of."

* * *

**Author Note: **Good? Bad? So/so? Let me know in a review. The story is very different from any other one-shot I've written, and I really want to know what you think. I'm sorry if it's completely horrible. 


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